Samperit / Custard Cookies

These are gorgeous 'Melt in the mouth' Samperit / Custard Cookies , one of many 'favourite' traditional cookies, in many Malay households during Eid Celebration in the 70's to 80's...

Every Raya /Eid celebration... my mom would start her preparation as early as 2 weeks before Eid. She would wash and dry the flat aluminium pot covers, which would served as baking trays later.
Then Mom would do a checklist and put aside all the ingredients needed.

She would bake as many as 5- 6 types of biscuits.... and one of the 'must-bake' sweet treats would be Samperit / Custard Cookies .

My siblings and I, would have Samperit / Custard Cookies every Raya... but sad to say... we didn't know how to appreciate good things back then. We overlooked, underestimated the traditional cookies, and started to yearn for other exciting fancy name Cookies from the West.

The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence...

Since none of her children were looking forward to the traditional cookies anymore... Mom stopped baking Samperit / Custard Cookies .

2 decades passed.. the craving and longing for traditional cookies started to kick in ...

I missed the 'Custardy-melt in the mouth taste' of Samperit / Custard Cookies ...

I missed that little yellow Rose flower cookies with the cute little red cherry on the top...

I have been on a quest for few years ... to bake the perfect Samperit / Custard Cookies but failures came to greet me... , either the dough was too soft that the 'petals' fell flat during baking or the dough was too stiff that my thumb hurts when I was trying to push the dough out of the nozzle...

I gave Mom a call...asking for her recipe... she described in the detail how she did hers... unfortunately the quantities in her recipe were measured by that orange colour tin labelled Brown and Polson Custard Powder ... dang!!!

I surfed the net... found a few... tried but still not as good as Mom's... until the subject about Samperit / Custard Cookies was mentioned in one of my FB conversations with my former schoolmates... we talked food all the time...NOT!!!

Intan, generously share her recipe... and with her consent, I am sharing with everyone...
Thanks Intan...

Want to know what I did to lessen the the soreness of my thumb, I will used the extra nozzle to press the dough in. Just wrap the 'presser nozzle' with some plastic bag to avoid the dough from getting into the hole. With that method you can even press it with your palm. More or less, you kasi tindihkan nozzle to on top of each other.

Oh no, I think I'm missing out something really delicious in this world! I have never heard of samperit and all I can imagine is from "custard cookies".... You totally perfected this cookies... look at all these same shape flowers!! They are like little robots marching down. so cute!!!! I actually have a question, so I'll email you! :-)

Yum yuM! I wanna make this for eid so badly. I have a question though, is cornflour the same as cornstarch? Or is it cornmeal? Just wanna make sure before I make them so I don't mess them up. I know cornflour can mean several things. :)

Gosh, you'd think after having a zillion of these in Singapore, I'd know their name? So thats what they are called. I always called them those yellow cookies with the red dot, lol! It must be truly awesome hitting that right recipe after years of searching for the perfect one :-)

Love kueh makmur! It's one of those kuehs that have not crossed over to join other chinese new year goodies like pineapple tarts and kueh bolu. I always look forward in anticipation for my muslim friends to share there makmurs with me during hari raya! :)

Ha! Funny that you said your mother used to make them in the 70s and 80s because that was my first thought when I saw the pictures: Vintage Biscuits! They really look sweet and I am happy for you that you finally managed a recipe that you like. :)